The Fosse Ardeatine
Massacre (Italian: Eccidio delle Fosse Ardeatine) was a mass execution
of 335 Italians carried out in Rome on 24 March 1944 by German occupation
troops during the Second World War as a reprisal for a partisan attack
conducted on the previous day in central Rome, that ambushed 35 Nazis,
and were retaliated on a Ten for One basis

The Cave Ardeatine (also known
as the Fosse Ardeatine ) became a National Monument and a Memorial Cemetery
. Every year, on the anniversary of the slaughter a solemn State commemoration
is held at the monument in honour of the fallen. Popes Paul VI and John
Paul II each visited the memorial once during their respective reigns,
as did Pope Benedict XVI on March 27, 2011.

Although it may be expected (and is
frequently claimed) that the victims of the Fosse Ardeatine were predominantly
Jewish, this is not so; only 75 of the 335 victims were Jews. Most of the
victims selected were those already in jail, some for criminal offenses,
most for partisan sympathies. Some had simply been residents of Via Rasella.
Others had been casually picked up on the streets. There were NO QUOTAS
or Preferences.

This Massacre was by Germans against
Italians after Italy joined the Allies. In Fact there were an estimated
1,000 Massacres that claimed 20,0000 Italians during the occupation of
Italy by Germans.

ROME (AP) ? Pope Benedict XVI on Sunday
prayed at the memorial to victims of a 1944 massacre that was one of the
worst atrocities by German occupiers in Italy during World War II and denounced
what he called the "abominable" legacy of violence unleashed during war.

The visit won Jewish praise that Benedict
had taken yet another step to heal centuries of painful Vatican-Jewish
relations.

The German-born pontiff visited the
Ardeatine Caves on the outskirts of Rome to mark the anniversary of the
killings of 335 civilians in Rome to avenge an attack by resistance fighters
that killed 33 members of a Nazi military police unit.

Among those in attendance were children
and other relatives of the victims, with some of the elderly family members
weeping at the memory of their loss and clutching flowers.

"What happened here on March 24, 1944,
is a very grave offense to God, because it is violence perpetrated by man
upon man," the pope said in speech at the simple memorial fashioned out
of the walls of the caves. "It is the most abominable effect of the war,
of every war," the pontiff said.

The wounds are still fresh for Rome's
tiny Jewish community. Many of them expressed outrage last fall when former
SS Capt. Erich Priebke, 97, was allowed to go shopping and to church in
Rome. Priebke was sentenced to life imprisonment for his role in the massacre
but later given house arrest due to his age.

Elan Steinberg, a leader of the American
Gathering of Holocaust Survivors and their Descendants, praised the pontiff
for paying "moving homage to the victims of this Nazi crime " Catholic
and Jew."

[RAA: The Portion below is MISLEADING
because of course Jews Killed Christ a supposedly Jewish "False Prophet",
a RADICAL that Threw the "Money Lenders out of the Synagogues, and
preached viciously vs the Rabbis that had strayed from Jewish Basics

More important, current Jewish Historians
don't deny it, the question is whether ALL JEWS of ALL CENTURIES should
bear the burden. The answer is obviously
NO, Just as we can't Hold ALL MUSLIMS responsible for 9/11]

"Coming on the heels of his strong
pronouncement exonerating Jews in the death of Jesus, this latest gesture
by the German-born Benedict is a further dramatic step in binding the wounds
that have disturbed Vatican-Jewish relations in recent years," Steinberg
said in a statement.

The landmark exoneration came in the
pope's new book, "Jesus of Nazareth-Part II," in which Benedict lays out
biblical and theological reasons why there is no basis in Scripture for
the argument that Jewish people as a whole were responsible for Jesus'
crucifixion. Interpretations to the contrary have been used for centuries
to justify the persecution of Jews.....

In 1994, Priebke was extradited to
Italy from Argentina, where he had lived for years, and put on trial. The
Germans had ordered 10 Italians to be executed for each of the 33 Nazis
killed by resistance forces in Rome a day earlier. Priebke admitted shooting
two people and rounding up victims, but insisted he was only following
orders.